


i'm on the other side (with the greener grass)

by ouimonsieur



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Cinderella AU, M/M, Multi, My First Fanfic, Past Relationship(s), almost everyone associated with 1d is mentioned at some point, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 06:48:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8002498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ouimonsieur/pseuds/ouimonsieur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis hums, weighing his ability to remember a fake name against the amount of alcohol he’s consumed. Fuck it. “‘M Louis.”</p>
<p>The man leans an elbow easily on the counter next to Louis. Louis watches the way his chest moves under his unbuttoned shirt, (and is that silk? This has got to be a violation of all kinds of human rights, this man can not be real,) the stretch and pull of muscles under his tattooed skin. “So Louis, do you come here often?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm on the other side (with the greener grass)

“Louis, get up! We need to leave if we want to be on time!”

Louis rolls over in bed to check his phone, ignoring Liam’s increasingly frantic yelling from outside his room. He scrolls through the list of notifications, noting that it’s only 9 am, approximately three hours before he’d usually choose to be conscious or moving on any given Saturday. At twenty-three, Louis has a limited amount of free time and he’d like to keep that time free, thank you very much, Liam.

“We promised Zayn and Niall that we’d be there early to help them set up!”

Rubbing at his eyes, Louis pushes the lock button on his notifications. He’d briefly forgotten his drunken promise to Zayn that “of course I’ll help you clean up for your party! You’re only my best mate!” upon which Liam had furrowed his brow and pointedly stared at Louis with puppy dog eyes until he admitted that he obviously loves Liam more, he does live with the poor sap. Nothing can resist Liam Payne’s doleful stare, once before uni he had gotten them past a bouncer with nothing but a fiver and a few seconds of pouting.

Louis is shaken from his hazy memories by Liam opening his door, hand covering his eyes. “Are you decent?” Liam asks, peeking through his fingers at Louis curled in his cocoon of blankets.

“We’ve lived together for four years and you’ve seen me naked more times than I can count.”

“Doesn’t mean I want to.”

Crawling out of his mass of duvets, Louis turns to glare at Liam. “Are you implying my arse is sub par?”

Quickly closing the gap in his fingers, Liam grimaces at Louis. “No, I just don’t want to see my best mate’s bare arse every morning.”

Shaking his head, Louis bends down to pull on a pair of skinny jeans. “Okay,” he says, rummaging on the floor for a shirt, “You can turn around. My beautiful behind won’t blind you anymore.”

“You should really just do your laundry,” Liam sighs, looking around at the piles of clothing covering Louis’ floor.

“Or I could let it sit until it bothers you enough that you do it for me. Aha!” Louis exclaims, pulling a wrinkled blue tee from the bottom of a precarious stack and holding it up proudly towards Liam. “Who needs laundry? Not me.”

Eyes shooting up from his phone screen, Liam frowns. “How long has that been there? And why do you have a Buffalo Bills shirt to begin with? You hate American Football.”

Louis shrugs, pulling the shirt over his head. “I think Lottie gave it to me. Said I ‘need to be more sporty’ or something.”

Liam ignores Louis’ explanation and swears quietly at his phone, replying “Niall’s waiting for us,” when Louis cocks an inquisitive brow.

Louis scowls at him. “I haven’t done my hair yet.”

“Well maybe if you’d gotten up earlier you would’ve been able to.” Liam steps back through the doorway, eyes not leaving his phone screen. “Come on, we don’t want to keep the love birds waiting.”

Under Liam’s watchful eye, Louis scrounges up a pair of ratty old vans and grabs his phone, sneaking a glance in the mirror and ruffling his messy hair into a scruffy fringe. He regrets his inability to wake up to an alarm, even if it had meant he’d have to miss sleep to shower and get ready properly.

“Louis!”

“Coming, Mommy dearest!”

They make the short walk to Niall’s fairly uneventfully, only stopping quickly for coffee (for Liam) and tea (for Louis). When they get to Niall’s flat, it’s apparent that they aren’t late for much. Zayn has Niall sat up on the counter, and the couple is kissing lazily.

“Oh my god, please put some clothes on,” Liam groans from behind his hands.

Louis claps him on the back. “It just isn’t your day, is it Payno?”

Zayn turns around, completely unphased but slightly more red around the ears. “Technically boxers count as clothing,” he says roughly as Niall rests his chin on his shoulder.

“Morning, lads!” Niall says cheerily, nuzzling his cheek into Zayn’s neck. Zayn makes the crinkle-eyed smile that he reserves exclusively for lazy mornings, special occasions, and small children.

Louis shakes his head and chuckles as he squeezes Liam’s shoulder, looking through the other boy’s fingers at his bright red face. “I know you two are excited to move in together, but maybe you should throw on something other than pants before Liam has a heart attack.”

“Right,” Zayn rasps, unhooking Niall’s arms from around his waist and grabbing his hand. They head into the bedroom to get dressed, Niall trailing behind like a love-struck duckling, as Louis coaxes Liam’s face from his hands.

"Hey, thanks for helping us with this," Niall says, stepping out of the bedroom and fixing his shirt. "Means a ton."

Louis smiles, "Wouldn't miss it for the world, lads.” He pauses to smack Liam’s shoulder where he’s started to grumble something about being a human alarm clock. “Where do we start?" He looks around at the plethora of boxes of Zayn's things littering Niall's flat.

"Let's start here and work our way out," Niall grins, slapping Zayn's ass when he passes him on his way out of the bedroom. Zayn tries to scowl at him but it turns out more a fond smirk than the look of outrage he’d been aiming for.

Louis is assigned to the kitchen with Zayn, (a decision that everyone later regrets when they have to spend almost an hour picking shards of porcelain off of the tile floor. Zayn cackles as Louis crosses his fingers behind his back and promises to buy them a new set of mugs for Christmas.) where they spend hours chatting and trying to decide why they felt the need to plan a “moving in” party for Zayn, (“I mean, what are we, 40? Why exactly is that something we have to celebrate? Are you getting married? Should I have bought you a present? New china?” “Shut up, Louis.”) barely doing any unpacking.

When Niall and Liam get back from setting up the rest of the flat and discover that the other pair has barely done anything, they make an executive decision to go to the diner down the street for dinner. Louis and Zayn readily agree, because what better way to prepare for a night of drinking than to ingest platefuls of homestyle fries and greasy burgers?

"Who's even coming to this little shindig?" asks Liam, tucking his hands into his pockets as they exit Niall's apartment building.

Niall turns around to face him, counting on his fingers as he rattles off the names of mutual friends. "Luke and Ash, Rita, Cher, Ed, Olly, Cara and Kendall, Nick—"

Louis makes a face. "Why would you invite Grimshaw?"

"I thought you said you two had 'settled your differences'," Zayn throws over his shoulder. "We didn't think his being there would be a problem."

"Our differences would be more settled with my fist in his face."

Niall furrows his brows and cocks his head to the side. "Do you not want him there, Lou? I can always ask him not to come, he said he was going to bring a couple of friends but if you don't want him there I can—" He trips over an uneven patch in the sidewalk, leaving Zayn to rescue him from the inevitable fall — his 'rescue' entailing the initial catching of Niall before he hits the ground, the ensuing pat-down to check for injury, and then the embarrassing stretch where Zayn insists that he carry Niall bridal style the rest of the block to the restaurant and Niall agrees.

"It's really fine, Nialler." Louis pats Niall's leg over Zayn's shoulder. "I can just avoid him if need be."

Liam opens the door for Zayn to maneuver Niall through. "What even happened between you two?"

Louis rolls his eyes. "What didn't happen would be a better question. He's a mouthy prick who doesn’t believe in boundaries, let's leave it at that."

When they get back to Niall’s flat, they’ve accumulated a much larger group, having run into some of Zayn’s DJing friends on the walk back. Louis walks back into the apartment full of greasy second-rate food and ready to get hammered.

The living room’s already buzzing with a few of their friends, since Ed has a key from his couch hopping adventures. Louis gets caught up in a discussion with Perrie and Cher on the current season of the X Factor. He’s in the middle of ranting loudly about exactly how much he hates Simon Cowell (to a very agreeable audience) when he spots a familiar dark quiff bobbing through the crowd towards them and excuses himself. He escapes from the living room to the connected kitchen, almost crashing into Zayn in the process.

“Y’alright, Lou?” he asks, narrowing his eyes at the crowd in his living room as if he can scare any threats with just a smoulder.

Louis plasters on a reassuring grin and shimmies around Zayn in the narrow doorway. “Perfectly fine, Zayner, just checking in on the booze situation of this little gathering.”

Zayn rolls his eyes as he glances over the crowd. “I don’t know what your issue is but I’ll text you if Grimshaw comes anywhere near the kitchen.”

“Bless you, Zayn Malik,” Louis breathes as he turns into the small kitchen, also partially packed with people.

The majority of the people in the kitchen already have red cups full of liquor, so he grabs the nearest person without a drink in their hand (which happens to be Leigh-Anne) and challenges them to a drinking contest 

“No rules, full stakes, whoever can do more shots of Jäger in five minutes wins the coveted Flat-Warming Cup!” He grabs the arm of another person passing by. “Ashton judges, right Irwin? You’re CPR certified?”

Leigh-Anne rolls her eyes, (a popular reaction to Louis tonight) then pats Ashton’s back with a reassuring smile. “Not that we’ll need it.”

-

A drinking contest and a slowly nursed beer later, Louis is half asleep splayed on the kitchen counter with a cup still in his hand. Someone bumps into Louis, and he opens his eyes to the sound of a deep voice saying “Sorry about that, mate.”

He looks down from where his chin is slumped onto the counter. He looks down onto long legs, connected to a long torso, connected to a man with long hair and long eyelashes, and possibly the most beautiful face he’s ever seen. Louis is so busy trying to name the exact shade of green of this beautiful man’s eyes (emerald, jade, mint, forest) that he misses the next thing he says until his eyes dart down to ridiculously pink lips.

“Sorry?” Louis slurs, staring at the man’s pink pink pink mouth and the crater of a dimple that pops out next to it. Louis wants to dip his tongue into it.

“I asked if you come here often, but now I’m mostly regretting it. Not nearly as funny the second time around, is it?” the stranger rumbles with a grin, and who has a voice that’s actually this deep? It’s like a fucking earthquake, like thunder, low and raspy enough to haunt Louis’ dreams for the rest of his natural life. (He gets poetic when he’s drunk, sue him.) Louis’s shaken out of his reverie again by another question. “Are you alright?”

Louis blinks slowly and nods. “Never better.” He licks his lips. “You?”

The beautiful man smiles again, his full lips stretching around too-big teeth. “Oh, I’m fine. What’s your name, by the way?”

“Why?” Louis asks, narrowing his eyes.

“Well I feel like I should call you something besides ‘the little one with the cheekbones’.”

Louis hums, weighing his ability to remember a fake name against the amount of alcohol he’s consumed. Fuck it. “‘M Louis.”

The man leans an elbow easily on the counter next to Louis. Louis watches the way his chest moves under his unbuttoned shirt, (and is that silk? This has got to be a violation of all kinds of human rights, this man can not be real,) the stretch and pull of muscles under his tattooed skin. “So Louis, do you come here often?”

Louis frowns up at him. “Not as funny the second time around, I thought?’

“Well yeah, the second. Not the third.” He grins at his own joke, dimple popping out just to taunt Louis. 

Shaking his head and rising from the countertop, Louis looks up. And up. Who is this enormous giraffe man and why is he so unfairly gorgeous? The man swallows, Louis watching his throat bob. “Wanna dance, Curly?”

“Sorry?”

“Dance.” Louis shimmies his hips, grabbing the stranger’s hand. “C’mon,” he says, tugging him towards the living room and the thumping bass of Zayn’s music. 

Louis leads the taller man through the crowd of people and onto the living room rug currently serving as their dance floor. They're still near the edge, far enough for a quick escape if a certain quiff reappears, but far enough into the writhing mass of people that Louis can't quite see Niall's pale walls. Why are there so many people at this party, anyway? Louis can't remember who exactly Niall and Zayn said they'd invited but it definitely was not upwards of forty. 

"You good, Lou?" Louis had momentarily forgotten all about his newfound dancing partner, and flashed a grin at the other man.

"Peachy keen, love. You are very pretty, you know that?" Louis lets his body sway to the beat and latches his hands onto the other man's hips as he sees his face redden. Shit. You don't say things like that out loud to strangers, Tomlinson.

This apparently isn't an issue though, because when he glances up again the stranger has a bright grin on his slightly rosy face, dimples out in full force. "So are you," he smiles more shyly. "May I have the honor of this dance?"

The music has changed from a pounding club beat to something softer. Louis smiles, "We're regular teenagers at prom, eh?" He pulls the other in closer, noting the softness of the shirt under his fingers. Definitely silk, then. He takes a moment to ponder, again, whether this man is actually real, or just an elaborate dream caused by alcohol poisoning.

“Well, I certainly hope not,” laughs his partner as they sway. “From what I see in movies, prom is usually a disaster.” 

They end up slowly making their way around the room, shuffling and swaying to the music which has only gotten more and more slow and romantic. Louis learns why when they pass Zayn and Niall dancing near the speakers, holding each other tightly with their foreheads pressed together as they whisper to each other. Louis pointedly rolls his eyes at them, only getting a middle finger from Niall and a smirk from Zayn in return. The stranger laughs lightly into Louis’ neck.

By the end of the eighth-or-so song, Louis’ sobered up a bit. He’s sweaty and a bit tired and sick of being crushed by a ton of other twenty-somethings and Uni kids. He’s also realized that he’s been dancing very intimately with a total stranger for half an hour. 

He picks up his head from where it’s been lying on the stranger’s shoulder for the past few minutes. “I’m gonna head outside for a bit, feeling a little cramped,” he says into the other man’s ear.

Louis untangles himself from the crowd of people dancing and weaves his way towards Niall’s front door. He notices that his dance partner is following him, but he keeps walking, finding his way up a staircase and around a corner until he finds the door that opens onto the building’s roof. 

He pushes the door open and then steps aside. “After you, good sir,” he says in his best posh accent, turning back to the other man.

“Why thank you, good sir,” the man grins, straightening his posture and stepping one booted foot onto the gravel outside.

Louis waits until he’s gotten through the doorway and then follows, making his way over to the bench that he’d dragged up here with Niall when he’d first moved into the building. He sits down with a sharp exhale, leaning back and sighing.

“You aren’t going to kill me, are you?” Louis laughs, eyes closed and hand fishing his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. “Not a crazy serial killer luring me up here with your good looks and bad dancing?”

When Louis opens his eyes again, the man has a furrowed brow and a pout to rival Liam’s on his face. “I resent that. I’m an incredible dancer.”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Louis cups his hands around the end of his cigarette, lighting it with a flick of his thumb. “Should I call for help before you slit my throat?”

“If I wanted you dead you would be already.” Louis startles a bit, but when he turns the other man is smiling sheepishly. “That was a joke, I swear I’m not a murderer.”

Louis chuckles, drawing in a lungful of smoke. “So how do you know Niall and Zayn, anyway? I’ve never seen you around, and I’m almost always around, so.”

The man turns, resting one elbow on the back of the bench. “Well I’ve met Zayn at a couple of parties, y’know, clubs and things, where he was working. Him and Niall have come into the bakery I work at a few times for lunch, they are very affectionate, aren’t they?” He smiles. “It’s sweet, really. How do you know them?”

“I met them in uni,” Louis leans back, exhaling smoke and tapping the ash off of his cigarette. “We were all in the same dorm so we kind of knew each other, and when we all wanted to move out we decided to get a flat together. We all became besties, and here we are.”

“A little more than ‘besties’, in their case.”

“Just a little,” Louis snorts. “Li and I are betting on when they’re getting married. I think it’ll be in a month or two, tops.”

“Li?” he raises his eyebrows. “Oh, are you, uh…”

“No,” Louis shudders, “God no. Liam’s my roommate, we aren’t… anything.”

“Well that’s… good.”

“And what about you, are you, do you,” Louis stutters, his face reddening.

“Oh! No, no, definitely not.”

Louis sighs. “That’s good. Well, not good, it’s just,” he places his head in his hands. “Oh my god.”

The other man lets out a startlingly loud honk of a laugh and shakes his head. He leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and shakes with laughter, curls falling forward to frame his face. “Anyway,” he says after settling, “You said you went to uni with Zayn and Niall? What did you study? If you don’t mind my asking, of course, don’t want to overstep my boundaries at all.”

“Well I feel like you crossed that bridge when you followed me out here uninvited,” Louis says, picking his head up with a good-natured smile. “No, it’s fine. I studied drama, bit cliche innit? While I was in the closet, not sure I was really fooling anyone though.” He throws the filter of his cigarette down, grinding it into the gravel with his heel. “What about you, did you go to uni, Mr. Baker?”

He shakes curls out of his face with a soft chuckle. “Yeah, went to be a lawyer. I thought, why not go all-out for a prestigious career? Obviously that didn’t work out, can’t see myself doing anything like that now,” he gestures to his silk blouse and trailing curls with a wry smile. “So now I do little shows at pubs and things on weekends, work at a bakery in between. I make a mean profiterole.”

Louis rolls his eyes, ignoring the eyebrows that the other man is waggling at him. “What kind of shows? You play?”

“I just sing and play a bit of guitar. Sometimes I get my mate Ed to help out, just a couple of acoustic song covers.”

“That’s incredible, mate! The most I’ve ever done is musical theatre, not the self-organizing type,” Louis grins and shakes his fringe out. “You’ve got the voice for it, though.”

Dropping his voice an octave, the other man rumbles out, “Thank you very much.”

Louis giggles as he stands up. “Wanna return to the party with me? There are so many bad remixes we haven’t yet danced to, and I’m feeling much too sober for this time on a Saturday.” He holds out his elbow to the man still sitting on the bench.

Taking his offered arm, the man stretches and cracks his back. “Oof, maybe I’m too old for partying into the wee hours like this.”

“Well come on old man, we have some grinding to do,” Louis says, grinning and cupping his hand over the one on his arm, pulling them both towards the door off the roof.

-

How exactly the night turns into a blur of drinks, dancing, and muffled laughter into the shoulder of a handsome stranger is a mystery to Louis. By the time people start filtering out of Niall’s (and now Zayn’s, officially by way of housewarming party completion) flat, it’s well past two in the morning. Louis’ just finished telling the story of the time Liam tried to pull a Cameron Frye and pretended to be a doctor to get him out of his exams, choking out drunken giggles into the blue of his partner’s shirt as they sway, the material smooth and soft under his cheek.

He nuzzles further into the silky shirt over the other man’s chest, laughing, “And that is why Liam hasn’t been allowed to partake in my brilliant schemes since. Zayn’s my number two now.” Louis aims a salute across the room, towards the vicinity Zayn where he’s tangled up half asleep with Niall on their recliner.

The chest his head is rested against rumbles with a laugh. “I don’t know if that’s fair to Liam though, Lou, I mean, you make it sound like at least he was trying—”

“Hey, H!” Louis is swung around so that his partner can face the direction the yell came from, (and oh god, Louis never wants to move this fast while drunk again, this is torture) somewhere near the door. “C’mon, we’re leaving!”

Louis looks up to where the other man is wearing what would probably be a shocked or upset look under any other circumstances, but with all the alcohol they’ve both consumed in the last few hours it looks more like adorable confusion than anything else.

He places a smacking kiss under the hinge of the other man’s jaw, pushing away from his partner with a swaying lurch. “Get out of here, old man,” Louis giggles, flapping his hand towards the door.

“Are you sure?” asks the other man, furrowing his brow with an odd look on his face.

“Of course, your friends are calling,” says Louis, wobbling a bit on his feet. As the other man heads unsteadily towards the door and his friends, Louis pats him on the ass for good luck, calling out “See you, hot legs!” with a grin.

-

Louis wakes up on Niall’s couch with the worst hangover he’s ever had. It feels like a cruel sort of Groundhog Day that he wakes up again to the sound of Liam’s voice, this time yelling at Niall.

“You have to crack the egg on the counter first, you can’t just crush it over the bowl!”

Louis groans as he hears Niall fire back, “Y’know what, Payno, this is my house, and if you don’t like my cooking methods you can just fuck right off home.”

Niall cackles and you can hear the panic in Liam’s voice as he berates him again, “You have to measure the ingredients, Niall… Zayn, please help me.”

“No can do, Li, I want to see how this turns out.”

A loud smacking kiss sounds from the kitchen before Niall says, “His devious nature is why I fell for him in the first place.” 

Liam gives a long-suffering sigh. “Your love sickens me. Oh my god, Niall, please measure the milk at least—”

A second passes before Niall bursts into laughter again, guffawing, “Well now it’s overflowing, thanks for the help, Payno.”

Zayn is obviously struggling not to laugh as he chants, “Drink it, drink it, drink it!”

“Don’t drink it,” Liam groans, accompanied by the audible slap of his head falling into his hands. “It’s filled with raw egg. And shells.”

Louis finally rolls over, going for facing away from the back of the couch so he can at least consider getting up, but overachieving and instead falling straight onto the floor.

“Sounds like someone finally decided to join the world of the living!” Niall skips into the living room from the kitchen, sing-songing, “How you feelin’ big boy?”

Louis groans. He cracks his eyes open to see Niall looming over him, thankfully blocking much of the light streaming from the uncovered window.

“I think I died. Is this hell?” Louis brings a hand up to paw at his face. “Are you Satan?”

Niall lets out his trademark cackle, licking off some of the milk around his mouth. “I think you’ll find I’m actually an angel, right, Zaynie?” He turns to where Zayn has appeared leaning over the back of the couch.

“Nah, he’s right,” Zayn says, smirking down at Louis.

Niall’s face falls, looking at his boyfriend with a forlorn expression. “I thought that we had something special, Z… I guess not.”

Louis closes his eyes again to their banter, drifting off a bit to try to tone down his headache. He really shouldn't have drank so much last night. Smooth move, Tomlinson. He thinks back to before he’d passed out, a blur of drinks and dancing and—

“Oh my god,” Louis says, eyes shooting open. “Who was I dancing with last night?”

Niall’s brow furrows, considering. “I don't know, actually. He was cute, he was your type, I figured I'd just let you dance.”

“Are you saying you danced with him the entire night and didn't think to ask his name?” Zayn’s eyes are narrowed, his lips pursed. “You can't actually be that stupid?”

Louis lets his head fall back onto the floor. “I am indeed that stupid.”

Liam trots into the room, ignorant to the mental crisis that’s currently wreaking havoc on Louis. “If you guys aren’t going to help me clean, the least you could do is eat these abominations.” He glances down at Louis, and then back at Niall, perched on the arm of the couch. “What on Earth is wrong with him?”

Niall breaks into a shit-eating grin, leaning down and patting Louis on the head. “Poor Tommo just realized that he’s an idiot.”

“God knows where he’s been for the last twenty-three years,” Zayn mumbles. “The rest of us knew ages ago.”

Louis flings out an arm at random, catching Zayn in the knee. “Watch it, Malik. Remember that I have pictures of you with that blond skunk-streak.”

He turns his face away from the scratching carpet and sees the tips of Zayn’s ears going red as Niall cackles.

“Anyway,” Zayn breaks into Niall’s fit of laughter with a glare at the blond, “Shouldn’t we be focusing on the important matters at hand? Like the fact that Louis doesn’t know the name of the boy he likes?”

Liam drops his head into his hands so fast it sounds like a slap. “Are you kidding? You were with him all night, Louis—”

Louis crushes his face back into the carpet, muffling his voice. “Payno, I know. Don’t you think I already feel ridiculous enough?”

“I mean, there had to be someone who knew him, right?” Liam rubs at his face. “It’s not like he could just disappear.”


End file.
